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Indigenous Plants

NEW! Download the new Indigenous Gardening in Whitehorse Booklet. It includes planting and design tips, sustainable gardening advice, 94 indigenous plant profiles and information about weeds of Whitehorse.

Download a specific list of indigenous flora to your address using Council’s Whitehorse Maps system. Residents can enter their address details to access a list of plants indigenous to their area. They can then use the Landscape Design Tool to establish a thriving indigenous garden.

Indigenous plants have adapted to soil types and weather patterns of specific areas, which means they grow better and have greater disease resistance.

Benefits of Indigenous Plants

Indigenous plants have developed and adapted over thousands of years to be suited to local conditions. Once established in the right location, they require little to no additional watering.

Indigenous flora provides important habitat for local birds, insects and reptiles. The more indigenous plants in your garden the more local wildlife you will see.

Indigenous plants can be cheaper to purchase, require less water and maintenance, establish quicker and are very resilient resulting in fewer plant replacement purchases. Many species will also reproduce resulting in free plants through natural colonisation of an area.

Indigenous plants are very attractive in their own right. Whether using them to recreate a bush landscape or amongst existing garden plants, they create colour and interest to any garden.

Indigenous plants in backyards, parks and streets help retain the local character of an area.

Terminology/Glossary

Native flora: plants originating anywhere within Australia

Indigenous flora: plants originating from and found naturally in a particular region of Australia (may be multiple regions)

Site indigenous flora: plants originating from and found naturally in a specific site within Australia (may be multiple sites)

Ecological Vegetation Class (EVC): a system of plant community classification for Victoria defined by a combination of floristics, lifeform, position in the landscape, and an inferred fidelity to particular environments

Local provenance: plants sourced or grown from existing vegetation within a specific region

Plant community: a collection of plants that occurs naturally and consistently within a particular local environment